Dems may come to regret crying wolf over Kavanaugh

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh answers a question about guns from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., during a third round of questioning on the third day of his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018.

Photo: Jacquelyn Martin, STF / Associated Press

Sometimes, I wonder what in God’s name is even going on in Washington, D.C., these days.

Clearly, there’s a fair amount of chaos in the White House. I’m looking forward to reading Bob Woodward’s book on the subject, which will be released in the coming days. But I wasn’t expecting Donald Trump’s West Wing to be a well-oiled machine. He had never held political office, prior to being elected president. That was actually a central part of the sales pitch he made to voters, while campaigning in 2016 — and if you’re trying to “drain the swamp,” you can expect the swamp creatures to object, surely.

Congress, though? Congress confuses me. Republicans control both chambers, but are struggling to wield their power to any practical effect, except when it comes to confirming Trump’s judicial nominees. Democrats, in response, are trying to make a virtue of their own ineptitude; we saw that this week, as the Senate Judiciary committee held hearings on Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee.

Kavanaugh, who has served since 2006 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, will almost certainly be confirmed. No one seriously disputes whether he’s qualified. And his confirmation is unlikely to change the balance of power on the Supreme Court. The seat he would fill was vacated by Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee who retired in July after 30 years on the high court. Kennedy was considered a swing vote, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he was a moderate — and he would have been able to anticipate that a Republican president would pick his replacement, even if the party has changed a bit since he joined the Court.

Furthermore, there’s no reason to be outraged by the fact that Trump has the opportunity to appoint Kennedy’s replacement, because there’s no reason to think Kennedy would have given Hillary Clinton the opportunity to do so had she been elected.

Also, Trump has, since becoming president, nominated a few outright bozos to various positions of power, so we should all be relieved that he avoided doing so in this case. Kavanaugh, if confirmed, will have a lifetime appointment.

All things considered, then, Democrats should have kept their powder dry this week. I could easily sympathize with the frustration they felt as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell whisked Neil Gorsuch through the confirmation process last year, after refusing to even hold hearings for Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, who is chief judge for the D.C. Circuit on which Kavanaugh serves.

But even if Democrats retake the Senate in November, they can’t compel the White House to withdraw Kavanaugh’s nomination in lieu of a progressive jurist, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And Ginsburg, as it happens, is 85 years old. Trump might well have the chance to nominate her replacement, too. If so, there’s nothing to stop him from picking someone like Jeanine Pirro, a controversial and fiery former judge from New York who now hosts a program on Fox News.

So it baffles me that so many Democratic leaders have taken such a combative attitude toward Kavanaugh himself. Over the course of this week’s hearings, which were repeatedly interrupted by protesters, he’s been cast as a potential crook as well as a conservative extremist who would rubber-stamp Trump’s agenda, as well as his increasingly frantic attempts to undermine the rule of law.

I can see where such concerns are coming from. After everything we’ve seen in recent years, many Americans find it hard to trust Republican leaders. They have been remarkably loyal to Trump. And since being nominated, Kavanaugh has declined a number of invitations to criticize the president, or disagree with him about various things — including Trump’s seemingly broad view on executive power.

But Kavanaugh’s refusal to denounce Trump isn’t suspicious, if you think about it. Clearly, the president is paranoid. Beyond that there’s no indication that Kavanaugh has any personal affinity for Trump, or a past relationship with him. His involvement with the GOP predates Trump’s decision to run for the party’s presidential nomination by several decades; in the 1990s, Kavanaugh was among the lawyers who helped investigate Bill Clinton, under independent counsel Ken Starr; later, he served in the White House, as staff secretary to George W. Bush.

And Kavanaugh, if confirmed, would be under no obligation to side with the president, whose ability to pressure the Supreme Court is circumscribed by the fact that he can’t fire any of its justices, even if he nominated them. Trump may not realize that, but Kavanaugh certainly does; and so do the Democrats who spent this week grandstanding against his nomination, and who may come to regret crying wolf during the course of this fight.

Erica Grieder joined the Houston Chronicle, as a metro columnist, in 2017. Prior to that she spent ten years based in Austin, reporting on politics and economics, as the southwest correspondent for The Economist, from 2007-2012, then as a senior editor at Texas Monthly, from 2012-2016. In 2013, she published her first book, "Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas." An Air Force brat, Erica thinks of San Antonio as home. She is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas's Emerging Leaders Council, and holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs and Columbia University, where she majored in philosophy.